Research ReportErasing the face after-effect

- Face after-effects decay exponentially after a blank delay period.
- Face after-effects are reduced even after brief presentation of an unrelated face.
- Unrelated faces reduce the time constant of face after-effects by 85%.

Perceptual after-effects decay over time at a rate that depends on several factors, such as the duration of adaptation and the duration of the test stimuli. Whether this decay is accelerated by exposure to other faces after adaptation is not known. Our goal was to determine if the appearance of other faces during a delay period after adaptation affected the face identity after-effect. In the first experiment we investigated whether, in the perception of ambiguous stimuli created by morphing between two faces, the repulsive after-effects from adaptation to one face were reduced by brief presentation of the second face in a delay period. We found no effect; however, this may have been confounded by a small attractive after-effect from the interference face. In the second experiment, the interference stimuli were faces unrelated to those used as adaptation stimuli, and we examined after-effects at three different delay periods. This showed a decline in after-effects as the time since adaptation increased, and an enhancement of this decline by the presentation of intervening faces. An exponential model estimated that the intervening faces caused an 85% reduction in the time constant of the after-effect decay. In conclusion, we confirm that face after-effects decline rapidly after adaptation and that exposure to other faces hastens the re-setting of the system.